José Lerma (b. 1971) was born in Spain and grew up in Puerto Rico. He studied political science at Tulane University before studying law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In Wisconsin, a few months shy of graduating with a law degree, he switched his major to art. Subsequently he was granted a year-long residency in Puerto Rico, attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, and completed the Core Program residency affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Lerma has drawn inspiration from his personal history as well as historical figures and events, as he uses an inventive approach to portraiture and creates compositions that are both abstract and figurative, humorous and dark, chaotic and controlled. His work has been internationally recognized at solo gallery exhibitions at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York, Kavi Gupta in Chicago, Xavier Hufkens in Brussels, the Galleria Il Capricorno in Venice, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in San Juan, and the Kemper Museum of Art in Kansas City.